How Many Rings Is Too Many Rings?

Dani Stahl is stacked, and it’s perfectly polite to say so. 

Yes, the Upper East Side style consultant has a bombshell body worthy of a Tracy Anderson ad, along with the kind of shiny, layered chestnut hair that matches 2 out of 3 original Charlie’s Angels. But in fashion circles, Stahl’s most talked-about stack is the jewelry kind — rings, really — that turn her fingers into a kind of living display case for coolness and carats.  

“Fashion has always been such a big thing for me, and I was always obsessed with jewelry and shiny things,” Stahl says on a recent school drop-off run. “But because I grew up in New York City, I had to wear a school uniform for my whole life. I wasn’t allowed to wear any extra accessories. By the time I got to college and could wear anything I wanted, I really started piling rings on. And I’ve never stopped.” 

Stahl’s philosophy may buck against the “clean girl aesthetic” that dominates minimalist fashion collections like Calvin Klein and Jil Sander, and dictates that a singular diamond cocktail ring is the height of modern sophistication. But among a bejeweled coven of ringbearers in fashion and beauty circles, she is the apex of something more valuable than glamour: The ability to wear stones as personal stories. 

You can see it in recent blockbuster films like The Odyssey, where the ring of the fallen soldier Elpenor becomes a symbol of the men Odysseus has been forced to leave behind. On the hit TV show Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a precious signet ring is handed to a child as a symbol of protection. (This being the Game of Thrones universe, things go horribly wrong, but at least they look incredibly expensive.)

“I think the reason ring stacks are so cool is because you can’t fake them,” said celebrity stylist Natasha Royt, who writes the fashion Substack First Option.  

She recently styled the actress and Vanity Fair Best Dressed List debutante Louisa Jacobson in a mound of diamond-studded rings from the Italian fine jewelry label Pomellato. “You have to work with your hands, work with things you already own, rearrange the shapes depending on the day — there is no phoning it in with wearing multiple rings. It has to be an intuitive process.” 

Royt says the ideal way to mix and match rings is by mashing up the old and new.

But there is also the manual work of placing rings around your hand — something tricky for those without long, slender digits. “There isn’t a hard and fast rule, but the first thing to consider is comfort,” says Royt. “If there’s friction between your fingers, then you’re not wearing ‘too many’ rings but you’re certainly not wearing the right ones for your life!”  

I tell her about a wide-set diamond baguette ring I was so excited to wear as I interviewed celebrities on the Golden Globes red carpet — until an hour into my reporting shift, my pointer finger felt like it was being sliced with a thousand tiny gold prongs.  

New York-based chef Tara Thomas has a current ring pile that includes a Charlotte Chesnais tripled ring, which she wears layered with her grandmother’s antique diamond ring from the 1950s, along with Sarah Eisman’s diamond-studded Lith Classic rings on either side. But her delight in the mega-bling lineup includes an easy out clause for kitchen time.  

“There’s a place for fabulous rings, obviously. But when you’re in it, take the jewels off. When you’re washing produce or handling raw things, always take the rings off,” she instructs. “I keep mine in my [apron] pockets and then during service, I put my talismans back on. They protect me.”  

Stahl admits it took her several years to learn the same discipline. “I always take my rings off when I wash my hands — which I do a lot, it’s a big thing for me. But the places where I have accidentally left expensive gold, even small diamonds — I shudder to think. Always know where your rings are going!”